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2009-08-25

Trailer - Night on the Galactic Railroad

Here is something I've wanted to show for a long time. It's the movie trailer to one of the all-time great anime films, Gisaburo Suugi's hauntingly beautiful Night on the Galactic Railroad. This movie is often remembered in the same grandiose terms as Grave of the Fireflies, and for many years, this was our best example of "anime as cinematic art."

Do sit down and watch this trailer. The American DVD has been out of print for years, but the fansub is freely available. Just scroll down to the Download These Fansubs section and help yourselves.

6 comments:

I absolutely adore this movie (which I heard about through this blog). It really is a gorgeous film. Every scene is visually stunning. The quiet stillness of the film really emphasizes the surrealism of it all. I really want to show this movie to everyone I know.

@katie: Thank you so much, you are very kind. I'm glad to have helped. If you manage to show this movie to others, you'll have to share with us what happened. I think I was trying to snap some screenshots this evening, before something intervened. I'll see what I can do to help.

Gisaburo Suugi's choice of using cats instead of people is one of the more interesting choices in this movie. I'd like to know his reasons for going in that direction. Perhaps he felt the more iconic cartoon characters would fit best in a story beset by surreal symbolism.

That's how I felt about the film too Daniel. I was still impressed with the visuals and the story itself not to be taken back by the use of those cat designs personally. Shame the film isn't re-licensed around here. It was one of the few bright spots in CPM's library outside their usual US Manga Corps releases (when it wasn't lame titles like "Dog Soldier", "The Humanoid" or "Crystal Triangle").

The decision to use cats came from Hiroshi Masumura (creator of Atagoal), since the film was based on his manga of the novel. But watching the film now, it feels like using anthropomorphic cats wasn't just the right choice, but maybe the only way to go. No other animal, including humans, has just the right look of dumbfounded curiosity.